I know there was a whole campaign book (I think) set in the Seattle Ranraku arcology. Did it have floor plans for the place? Is it still available? I have been looking locally but can't find it any where. Any help, even if its "No it does not exists" would be appreciated.
Thanks

IIRC, It's over 300 stories... The old Seattle sourcebook gives a fairly detailed breakdown based on the floors, no maps though. It was written before the arc was completed though so things have changed a smidgen, something about an AI or some such.

Renraku Arcology: Shutdown also has a breakdown by floor at the end of the book, and that book will also include some of the, um, alterations that were made.

Just to be clear, Renraku Arcology: Shutdown DOES NOT contain the floorplans you seek. It describes how the floors are arranged (which is strikingly similar to the arrangement in The Towering Inferno, by the way) ... meaning something like "100 floors of commercial/offices, then above that 100 floors of residential, then above that 50 floors of industrial," etc. It then breaks down the sections further, and details a number of individual floors. The first few floors is like a big mall (like the World Trade Center used to be), with an amusement park and everything. Many sublevels of parking and industrial.

Anyway, no floor plans that I recall.

Apparently not available commercially as a PDF, and is out of print. I found a copy for you on eBay for $10 if you're interested, though. =)


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When running the Brainscan campaign (well the finale really) I found the Chicago Arcology book from Cyberpunk 2020 (I believe) to be very useful. I don't think it had floor by floor plans but I think it did have some smaller maps.

You may also want to check out Sprawl Sites for basic floor plans of shops/apartments/banks/etc which you could use as well. All that you'd be missing would be the corridors and maintenance areas that connect everything.

For what it's worth, if you're setting this campaign / shadowrun in the 4th edition setting, the Arcology is already a done deal; the UCAS, after brutal fighting, cleared it out. Don't let that stop you, though. Deus is a busy dude.

Really just wanted to look at it to get an idea of what a big arcology is like. The descriptions I have seen so far are so non-descriptive as to be useless.

If you're just wanting ideas of what a big arcology is like - I'd suggest some of the popular fiction links in the Wikipedia Arcology article.

Personally I view the Renraku Arcology as similar to the Genom Towers from Bubblegum Crisis.

I think an arcology like that would be so big that it would be very difficult to make a useable map. It probably has more in common with a city map than it does a building floorplan. If you recall the late days of AD&D, boxed sets like Undermountain would have four poster-sized maps for the dungeon. An arcology map built on a similar scale would probably be bigger than your house, and you'd need one for each floor with a different floorplan. So most maps that are of a size to be practical aren't going to have any real detail-- it'll probably be the building's footprint with varying shades of grey blocks that say things like "Commercial Zone" and "Residential Zone".

To be usable in the game, you're probably going to be better off designing or compiling a set of "typical areas". A shopping mall inside an arcology is probably laid out a lot like a shopping mall anywhere else.

I do remember using the old boxed set modules from AD&D. Especially Dragon Mountain. To this day I have an unreasonable hatred of Kolbods, lol. Any way I may still pick up Shutdown as its the only thng really put out by any Shadowrun company that gives a more than passing description of what an Arcology should be like. Even without specific floor plans it should still be usefule.

Great visual of what the amusement park might look like on the first few levels. =)


Click here

Also, a more comprehensive breakdown is here.

EDIT: Imagine it with only emergency lighting and you get the idea. LOL

Lol, had a player who has an old copy of Renraku Shutdown and asked her if I could borrow it. Sher flately refused saying that eh madule had already killed her three times in a row, lol. When I tried to explain I just wanted to look at it for ideas she said she could have her character shoot herself in the head. It would be faster and have the same result, lol.